Chapter Thirteen
The night passed uneventfully.
Ryan was awakened once by a hunting owl, circling around the smoldering remnants of the camp fire, its mournful hooting echoing across the silent river.
There was also some pain from his wound, stabbing and making him gasp when he tried to get up for a piss around four in the morning.
The whole leg had tightened, and there was enough moonlight for him to see that the bruising had come, purpling the swollen skin around both entrance and exit wounds. It had stiffened while he’d been sleeping, and to move away from the others, propping himself against the live oak, hurt Ryan.
Krysty had awakened as he moved, but he’d whispered for her to go back to sleep.
The night was still, with just a faint breeze flowing south with the Tennessee, carrying the scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh. A silver segment of moon sailed bright and serene between ragged shreds of high cloud. Away to the east, inland from their camp, Ryan caught the infinitely distant rumble of thunder and saw the silver lace of a chem storm. But it was all far enough away to give no cause for concern.
Doc’s phrase about it being a time out of war struck at him as he finished relieving himself. After the brief firefight at the dirt-poor frontier pesthole, the day had been calm and gentle. No threat from the elements or from any living creatures.
And the coming day promised to be similar, cruising quietly along, carried safely on the bosom of the mighty river, south through the green fields of Tennessee. It was so rare for any of them for even a day to pass without some sort of threat of violence or, so often, actual violence.
Once dawn came up they would set off toward Savannah and Shiloh. Ryan had read a little about the Civil War, and he knew that Shiloh had been the bloodiest of battles, with close to twenty-five thousand men killed or missing or wounded, unimaginably huge losses in those days.
He picked his way around the glowing embers of the fire and laid down again at Krysty’s side.
She stirred and opened her eyes. “All right, lover?” she muttered.
“Fine. Just fine.”
“No trouble?”
He patted her hand. “None.”
RYAN SLEPT SOUNDLY, waking only when Jak began breaking up some dry wood to rekindle the fire, whistling to himself, his breath pluming out in the dawn chill.
“Coffee, toast, ham, eggs over-easy, fresh orange juice, grits, pancakes, maple syrup, fries and then some more coffee.” Ryan grinned at the white-haired teenager. “You got all of that?”
“We got berries fresh and berries medium-rare and berries well-done, Ryan.” He brushed back his hair from his ruby eyes. “Oh, and we also got berries.”
“Serve me up a steaming platter of those elusive berries, myrmidon,” Doc called.
“Should we do some hunting?” the Armorer asked, stretching his arms wide and adjusting his fedora.
“Might not be a bad idea.” Ryan yawned. “No hurry to leave this place. Who knows what the food situation’ll be like farther south? Could run into an old hot spot or find ourselves in some mutie paradise.”
“Get us a deer,” Jak suggested.
“Pig might be better. If it wasn’t for my leg, I’d come with you. Even with my stick, I figure I’d get in the way.”
“I’ll go with John,” Mildred offered. “If game’s that plentiful, I can certainly bring something down with my revolver. Could do with some practice.”
Ryan nodded. “Fine. Rest of us’ll stay around here. Collect some more dry wood. Scavenge around for vegetables to go with the meat.”
“I believe that I saw some sweet potatoes last night,” Doc said. “Should I go and dig some up?”
“Yeah. And if there’s any old buckets or pots to cook in If there’s this orchard, then the remains of an old house can’t be all that far away.”
“We could go look,” Krysty said eagerly. “Don’t have to make it all the way south to Shiloh today. Just for once we got this quiet time. Let’s make the best of it.”
JAK AND DOC STAYED to gather wood and to get vegetables and more fruit for the meal, while J.B. borrowed the Steyr rifle again. “Just in case you miss, Mildred.”